My dad was driving, and he thought he somehow got four flat tires at once, until he saw the poles.
They’re a pretty regular occurrance here, but I still haven’t gotten used to them.
There’s a difference in feel between a small one that’s close by and a big one further away. The small ones feel more like a door being slammed or something heavy being dropped, as others have said. For a big, distant one, lean back in an office chair and jiggle your leg at about half its natural speed until your whole body feels like its rocking back and forth.
Back in 1982 (I think) there was a semi-big quake in Canada (New Brunswick) that was felt throughout New England. Seem to recall it was 5.0 or thereabouts.
I was visiting a friend in Boston, and was sleeping late when I got shook enough to wake up and start cursing, thinking that the construction site nearby was cranking it up. I looked out the window to see “no one” at the site.
I thought I was going crazy until my friend called me from her job and asked if I felt the quake.
I found a link to the event, my memory was pretty good.
The thump is the longitudinal P-wave striking first. The lateral S-waves follow, causin the shaking. They travel at different speeds, and the time delay between them determines your distance from the epicenter.
Seismologists use distance data from several locations to triangulate the location of the epicenter.
David, I felt it too. Scared the living crap out of me 
Had just got home, fired up the computer, felt a little rumbling. Thought to myself, “Hey, that feels just like the run-up to a quake”. No sooner thought it than BAM, the large jolt hit.
Dogs started whining (and what’s up with that? Aren’t they supposed to get off their lazy butts and let me know beforehand?), had to walk them outside so they could see the world didn’t end.
Haven’t had a shaker up here for a while (that I can remember).
Based on this list, I’m guessing you’re in Ridgecrest, CA?
Just to confirm what’s already been said…most quakes feel like somebody heaving running through your room, and you get the accompanying sound of things jiggling and clinking together. If you’re a few floors up, you also get a vertiginous feeling as your building sways slightly.
Bingo. And I see a new name just above, also from Ridgecrest.
I’ve experienced minor earthquakes/tremors over the years–although never in SoCal, despite all the time I spent there visiting family when I was growing up.
The last one I experienced was in the late 80’s when I was living in Bloomington, IN. I was on the third floor of an eight-story building when it hit. It was very small–like 3.1 from what I remember–but it really felt like someone was shaking the building. By the time I recognized it and starting trying to decide if I could fit under the desk I was sitting at, or if the doorframe was more logical, it had stopped. In the meantime, a girl sitting in the same room started getting upset with her friend who she accused of shaking her seat. I told them that it had been an earthquake/tremor–one of them patently didn’t believe me (and was still mad at her friend), the other started freaking out about how we needed to get out of the building immediately! I pointed out that it was over, then packed up my stuff and left, rather than argue with them about it.
My husband was in a different building on a ground floor, and he said that all they noticed was a slight vibration in the windows. He’s never knowingly experienced an earthquake or tremor, though, so he didn’t have a clue what it meant.
I actually felt the 1989 Newcastle earthquake. I was at work, near Manly on Sydney’s northern beaches, and at the moment the earthquake struck i was actually leaning back in a chair, balancing on two chair legs with my back against the wall. The movement wasn’t very large, but it was significant enough that i was overbalanced forward onto all four chair legs.
My parents both lived near Maitland and worked in Newcastle at the time, and when the quake hit my mother was in the toilet in the basement of the Woolworths department store. She said there was a rumbling, then everything went pitch black. She wasn’t hurt, and neither was anyone else in the store, i don’t think, but the quake killed 13 people and injured over 150.
My wife is from San Francisco, and we visit her family out there a couple of times a year. In the three years or so that i’ve been going out there with her, i’ve felt two or three very small quakes, usually at night.